I hope you are buying a heritage or a truly naturally raised, free range turkey for your holiday celebration! Heritage turkeys are the traditional “standard” breeds of turkeys which have not been “industrialized” for efficient factory production at the expense of flavor and the well-being of the turkeys.

When you buy heritage turkeys, you are making a difference because you are voting with your dollar! You are supporting small family farms, humane treatment of birds and preserving endangered lines of turkey breeds that would otherwise be on their way to extinction. Heritage and truly free range birds are absolutely delicious and have a lot more flavor than traditional store bought birds. If you brine your turkeys for flavor, you can skip this step with a heritage turkey if you wish. When you buy heritage, free range or truly natural or organically raised birds (they way mother nature intended), you won’t find any antibiotics, hormones, preservatives or additives. What you get is high quality, pure delicious, organic foods that’s much healthier for you and your family!

Here are a few recommended sources for your holiday needs. Heritage Foods, USA, the sales and marketing arm for Slow Food USA (one of my favorite non-profit food movements) will ship you your bird. You can get 15% off your first order if you buy through their website. They also sell through a number of retail outlets across the country (but I have not been able to locate a list). Heritage Foods launched the Heritage Turkey Project, which helped double the population of heritage turkeys in the United States and upgraded the Bourbon Red turkey from “rare” to “watch” status on conservation lists. Heritage Foods is dedicated to saving rare Native American foods like pigs, sheep, bison, cows, reef-net salmon, goats and all breeds of food livestock, so it is critical to support and buy from them.

To find a local purveyor of heritage and organic turkeys check out LocalHarvest.org. You can also check out Mary’s Turkeys, who predominantly sells on the West Coast, California, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. Mary has a list of stores carrying her Heritage turkeys at MarysTurkeys.com.

If you want to know more about how to turkey this holiday season check out our new recipes and videos on OrganicAuthority.com TV.

From our partners

About Author

Comments

Turkey offers a mild climate, the best period to visit it is spring, when the country is not invaded by tourists. This advice is for those who want to visit historical sites, such as Didim, Troy and Ephesus. If you are more keen on spending your holiday on the beach, you should visit Turkey in June and July when it is not so humid and hot.